This is the way of the world after Tommy John surgery. Stephen Strasburg was impressively efficient in his first major league start last Tuesday. He needed just 56 pitches to go five full innings. But results can change from one outing to the next. We saw that from Jordan Zimmermann the last two months of last season after he returned from his own elbow surgery.
On Sunday against the Houston Astros, Strasburg threw 57 pitches. He gave up one run on three hits, walked none and struck out four. Pretty good. But Strasburg only made it three innings in large part because he struggled to put Houston batters away. The Astros fouled off 16 pitches total. Strasburg needed 31 pitches just to get through the first inning.
“There was a little command on certain pitches that I was struggling with,” Strasburg said. “At the same time they were fouling a lot of pitches off. That’s what ran my pitch count up that first inning. But if I throw pitches down in the zone more, maybe those would have been ground balls instead of foul balls into the stands.”
Again, we’re using an extra high bar for Strasburg starts because of what he has shown us in his brief big league career. In the end, that’s still a good line for his second start back. And while the Astros are trotting out a horrific lineup at this point, there were no real hard-hit balls.
Strasburg induced nine swings-and-misses, but his velocity dipped briefly in the second inning. His fastball in that frame sat between 92 and 95. But he had enough juice in his last inning to whiff Jimmy Paredes with a pair of 96 mph fastballs, and the next batter, J.D. Martinez, saw two 97 mph two-seamers. But the velocity drop didn’t go unnoticed.
“I never really watch it that much. [Pitching coach Steve] McCatty was over there like the mother hen he is, having a heart attack wanting to run out there,” Washington manager Davey Johnson said. “I said there’s nothing wrong with 92. … But he had a pretty good change-up, and he looked fine.”
– Brian McNally
mailto:[email protected] “>[email protected]
